Notes on the AtrocitiesLike a 100-watt radio station, broadcasting to the dozens...

Thursday, July 31, 2003

But enough about Poindexter. Let's talk gay marriage--everyone else is. Yesterday the President came out against it, and today it's the Pope. Neither one gave much quarter. The President said he didn't think it was appropriate to judge another man--in God's eyes we're all sinners. Then he judged gays.

The Pope went a little further: "There are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God's plan for marriage and family. Marriage is holy, while homosexual acts go against the natural moral law. Legal recognition of homosexual unions or placing them on the same level as marriage would mean not only the approval of deviant behaviour ... but would also obscure basic values which belong to the common inheritance of humanity."

Now aside from the fact that the Pope is really in no position to issue much opinion at all on the nature of marriage or dating, there's that whole issue of the pedophilia, about which the Vatican has prevaricated. So the Pope's internal logic doesn't hold up much better than the President's. (You can obviously expect some satire on this in the next few days.)

When you think about it, the whole issue's pretty odd. I get that this is a religious issue, but unlike the interracial dating menace, homosexuality is not spreading. It's more than a little unlikely that a Republican legislator will be confronted with the grim specter of having his hetero son "go gay" once marriage is legal for all. In fact, the only possible downside from a Republican point of view is the chance that a gay couple may actually be a front for Mike getting poor Ahmed his citizenship before Ashcroft throws him in the pokey. But it seems an unlikely issue to have stirred such consternation.

But maybe I just fail to grasp the lurking danger. Anyone care to enlighten me?